Arsene wenger insisted Arsenal had shown the mental strength needed to win the title after fullback Lauren held his nerve to clinch victory in a frenetic North London derby with a late penalty.

Arsenal's title hopes looked set to suffer a setback when former Manchester United striker Teddy Sheringham scored an immensely controversial penalty nine minutes from time to equalise Fredrik Ljungberg's first-half strike.

However, Arsenal were then awarded their own spot-kick with four minutes left when Dean Richards wrestled Thierry Henry to the ground - only to find that three leading penalty-takers were not available.

Henry, who had missed his last two spot-kicks in any case, was off the pitch injured, second-choice Edu had just been substituted and third-choice Patrick Vieira did not rise to the occasion.

Instead, Cameroon international Lauren picked up the ball and nonchalantly rolled his shot into the middle of the goal to put Arsenal back above Manchester United at the top of the table.

Wenger declared: "There was a lot of tension and nerves but we found the mental strength to bounce back. It was an important victory as it is still in our hands.

"The fact that we won will give us even more belief. Now our performances will decide. We are very confident and we have a great belief in our team that we will do it.

"Manchester United won earlier against Leicester but that just shows our strength as we were under pressure as we knew we could not slip up."

Wenger praised Lauren's calmness under pressure, adding: "When Thierry was down, nobody took the ball. But Lauren took the responsibility and did very well.

"I've seen so many penalties recently not going in that you're nervy when the person taking the penalty is not the normal penalty-taker.

"But what gave me the confidence is that he has scored some important penalties with Cameroon and he has the nerves. He is a strong boy in his head."

Those penalties included shoot-outs at the African Nations' Cup, and also a last-minute spot-kick which gave Cameroon a semi-final victory against Chile at the 2000 Olympics.

Lauren revealed: "I took the responsibility to take the penalty as I was confident. I've taken them for Cameroon before and scored."

Arsenal's late winner ensured that controversy over Tottenham's penalty became a side issue, even if Gustavo Poyet looked almost embarrassed when referee Mark Halsey awarded it for a supposed foul by David Seaman.

Wenger insisted: "I couldn't believe it. The important thing was how we would react and I was confident we would react strongly."

Spurs boss Glenn Hoddle, who revealed that defender Ledley King had gone off with an Achilles injury, took a rather different view of the two penalties.

"Ours was a little bit clearer as there were less bodies around. The lads thought their penalty was 50-50, it wasn't as blatant as ours," he maintained.

"We should have weathered the storm after getting back to 1-1."

While both sides were forced to try their luck from long-range early on - to little effect - it was not until the 24th minute that Ljungberg produced the first real threat.

Keeper Kasey Keller produced a fine one-handed save on that occasion but Ljungberg was not to be denied for long.

Just a minute later, Bergkamp produced another typically pin-point through-ball and Lungberg was onto it in a flash to clip his shot past the Spurs keeper.

While Bergkamp himself came close with a curled effort just before the break, Arsenal could still not rest on their laurels.

Indeed, when Sol Campbell slipped to allow Sheringham to clip a shot over the bar, only the offside flag saved both of their blushes.

With King limping before the break and certainly having endured a torrid afternoon, there was at least a much-needed change in the visitors' line-up after the interval.

With King taken off, Davies came on and that enabled Spurs to revert to their more accustomed 3-5-2 formation, with the Welshman fitting in at right wingback and Ziege dropping slightly back.

However, the match looked to be petering out when it suddenly exploded into action in the final 10 minutes.

Poyet was already flying through the air as he tried in vain to reach the ball inside the penalty area when he made contact with Seaman and fell to the ground. While every player seemed to expect a goal-kick to be awarded, referee Halsey incredibly pointed to the spot.

Poyet was almost apologetic when Arsenal's players remonstrated with the official but the decision stood and who else but former United striker Sheringham should convert the spot-kick.

The drama was not over yet. In fact, it had only just begun. Just three minutes later, Halsey awarded Arsenal a penalty when Richards appeared to haul down Henry.

The Arsenal striker had missed his last two penalties and as he limped away, up stepped Lauren to nonchalantly roll the ball home and put the home side back ahead.

It was the moment that could have decisively turned the title in Arsenal's favour.